Download or read book Nice Guys Finish Last written by Leo Durocher and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-09-15 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I believe in rules. Sure I do. If there weren't any rules, how could you break them?” The history of baseball is rife with colorful characters. But for sheer cantankerousness, fighting moxie, and will to win, very few have come close to Leo “the Lip” Durocher. Following a five-decade career as a player and manager for baseball’s most storied franchises, Durocher teamed up with veteran sportswriter Ed Linn to tell the story of his life in the game. The resulting book, Nice Guys Finish Last, is baseball at its best, brimming with personality and full of all the fights and feuds, triumphs and tricks that made Durocher such a success—and an outsized celebrity. Durocher began his career inauspiciously, riding the bench for the powerhouse 1928 Yankees and hitting so poorly that Babe Ruth nicknamed him “the All-American Out.” But soon Durocher hit his stride: traded to St. Louis, he found his headlong play and never-say-die attitude a perfect fit with the rambunctious “Gashouse Gang” Cardinals. In 1939, he was named player-manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers—and almost instantly transformed the underachieving Bums into perennial contenders. He went on to manage the New York Giants, sharing the glory of one of the most famous moments in baseball history, Bobby Thomson’s “shot heard ’round the world,” which won the Giants the 1951 pennant. Durocher would later learn how it felt to be on the other side of such an unforgettable moment, as his 1969 Cubs, after holding first place for 105 days, blew a seemingly insurmountable 8-1/2-game lead to the Miracle Mets. All the while, Durocher made as much noise off the field as on it. His perpetual feuds with players, owners, and league officials—not to mention his public associations with gamblers, riffraff, and Hollywood stars like George Raft and Larraine Day—kept his name in the headlines and spread his fame far beyond the confines of the diamond. A no-holds-barred account of a singular figure, Nice Guys Finish Last brings the personalities and play-by-play of baseball’s greatest era to vivid life, earning a place on every baseball fan’s bookshelf.
Download or read book Circular written by and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Bad Guys Won written by Jeff Pearlman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jeff Pearlman has captured the swagger of the '86 Mets. You don't have to be a Mets fan to enjoy this book—it's a great read for all baseball enthusiasts." —Philadelphia Daily News Award-winning Sports Illustrated baseball writer Jeff Pearlman returns to an innocent time when a city worshipped a man named Mookie and the Yankees were the second-best team in New York. It was 1986, and the New York Mets won 108 regular-season games and the World Series, capturing the hearts (and other assorted body parts) of fans everywhere. But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, the Amazin’s left a wide trail of wreckage in their wake—hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the hated Boston Red Sox. With an unforgettable cast of characters—including Doc, Straw, the Kid, Nails, Mex, and manager Davey Johnson—this “affectionate but critical look at this exciting season” (Publishers Weekly) celebrates the last of baseball’s arrogant, insane, rock-and-roll-and-party-all-night teams, exploring what could have been, what should have been, and what never was.
Download or read book Good Guys of Baseball written by Terry Egan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2000-03 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated with a new chapter on Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, this collection of inspiring true stories shows why baseball is "the" American pastime. Photos.
Download or read book Baseball s Good Guys written by Marshall J. Cook and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Lou Gehrig to Derek Jeter, here are 26 players, including one woman, fans will want to get to know better because of their courage, determination, charity, and sacrifice.
Download or read book We Played the Game written by Danny Peary and published by Hyperion Books. This book was released on 1994-04-07 with total page 678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This incredible gathering of first-hand remembrances brings a fascinating and enlightening new perspective to the period of baseball's greatest peak and ultimate turning point--when bigotry and exploitation still ran rampant among the clubs and the sport was irrevocably being changed into a business. 100 photos.
Download or read book Last Time Out written by John Nogowski and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-07-01 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most sports fans know that Ted Williams ended his major league career with style, swatting a home run in his final at bat. But what about Babe Ruth? Ty Cobb? Joe DiMaggio? Willie Mays? How did some of baseball's greatest players bow out of The Game? Last Time Out answers that question as it examines how the greatest players in baseball history left the game they once ruled. The stories of these men and how they finished their careers, never collected anywhere before now, show another side of the men whose achievements on the field made them legends. After hours and hours of research, through biographies, microfilm, magazines, and memories, award-winning sportswriter John Nogowski culled the stories of the final games of 25 of The Game's greatest athletes-Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, Jackie Robinson, Dizzy Dean, Satchel Paige, Carlton Fisk, Bob Feller, Joe Morgan, and Carl Yastrzemski are among those featured. This impressive work recounts the circumstances surrounding these final games and puts you in a box seat to witness and sense the moment as these glorious careers ceased, most often with little fanfare. Whether it be Shoeless Joe Jackson, Lou Gehrig, Pete Rose, or Cal Ripken, Jr., Last Time Out beautifully captures in words and photographs the essence of these players' last time in uniform and celebrates the magic of the game these famed players mastered and loved.
Download or read book The Baseball Codes written by Jason Turbow and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-03-22 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insider’s look at baseball’s unwritten rules, explained with examples from the game’s most fascinating characters and wildest historical moments. Everyone knows that baseball is a game of intricate regulations, but it turns out to be even more complicated than we realize. All aspects of baseball—hitting, pitching, and baserunning—are affected by the Code, a set of unwritten rules that governs the Major League game. Some of these rules are openly discussed (don’t steal a base with a big lead late in the game), while others are known only to a minority of players (don’t cross between the catcher and the pitcher on the way to the batter’s box). In The Baseball Codes, old-timers and all-time greats share their insights into the game’s most hallowed—and least known—traditions. For the learned and the casual baseball fan alike, the result is illuminating and thoroughly entertaining. At the heart of this book are incredible and often hilarious stories involving national heroes (like Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays) and notorious headhunters (like Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale) in a century-long series of confrontations over respect, honor, and the soul of the game. With The Baseball Codes, we see for the first time the game as it’s actually played, through the eyes of the players on the field. With rollicking stories from the past and new perspectives on baseball’s informal rulebook, The Baseball Codes is a must for every fan.
Download or read book Baseball when the Grass was Real written by Donald Honig and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Honig interviewed former big-league players across the country to compile this nostalgic book packed with statistics, action, revelations, and an extraordinary oral history of the halcyon days of baseball between the world wars. Includes comments by Ted Williams, Bucky Waters, Lou Gehrig, and others. Photos.
Download or read book The Baseball 100 written by Joe Posnanski and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 702 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the CASEY Award for Best Baseball Book of the Year “An instant sports classic.” —New York Post * “Stellar.” —The Wall Street Journal * “A true masterwork…880 pages of sheer baseball bliss.” —BookPage (starred review) * “This is a remarkable achievement.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) A magnum opus from acclaimed baseball writer Joe Posnanski, The Baseball 100 is an audacious, singular, and masterly book that took a lifetime to write. The entire story of baseball rings through a countdown of the 100 greatest players in history, with a foreword by George Will. Longer than Moby-Dick and nearly as ambitious,? The Baseball 100 is a one-of-a-kind work by award-winning sportswriter and lifelong student of the game Joe Posnanski. In the book’s introduction, Pulitzer Prize–winning commentator George F. Will marvels, “Posnanski must already have lived more than two hundred years. How else could he have acquired such a stock of illuminating facts and entertaining stories about the rich history of this endlessly fascinating sport?” Baseball’s legends come alive in these pages, which are not merely rankings but vibrant profiles of the game’s all-time greats. Posnanski dives into the biographies of iconic Hall of Famers, unfairly forgotten All-Stars, talents of today, and more. He doesn’t rely just on records and statistics—he lovingly retraces players’ origins, illuminates their characters, and places their accomplishments in the context of baseball’s past and present. Just how good a pitcher is Clayton Kershaw in the 21st-century game compared to Greg Maddux dueling with the juiced hitters of the nineties? How do the career and influence of Hank Aaron compare to Babe Ruth’s? Which player in the top ten most deserves to be resurrected from history? No compendium of baseball’s legendary geniuses could be complete without the players of the segregated Negro Leagues, men whose extraordinary careers were largely overlooked by sportswriters at the time and unjustly lost to history. Posnanski writes about the efforts of former Negro Leaguers to restore sidelined Black athletes to their due honor and draws upon the deep troves of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and extensive interviews with the likes of Buck O’Neil to illuminate the accomplishments of players such as pitchers Satchel Paige and Smokey Joe Williams; outfielders Oscar Charleston, Monte Irvin, and Cool Papa Bell; first baseman Buck Leonard; shortstop Pop Lloyd; catcher Josh Gibson; and many, many more. The Baseball 100 treats readers to the whole rich pageant of baseball history in a single volume. Engrossing, surprising, and heartfelt, it is a magisterial tribute to the game of baseball and the stars who have played it.
Download or read book A Salty Piece of Land written by Jimmy Buffett and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2004-11-01 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wander to "where the song of the ocean / Meets the salty piece of land" with Tully Mars, washed up from Margaritaville and in the mood for monkeyshines, in a shimmering Caribbean epic by the late king of tropical rock, Jimmy Buffett. It's not on any chart, but the tropical island of Cayo Loco is the perfect place to run away from all your problems. Waking from a ganja buzz on the beach in Tulum, Tully can't believe his eyes when a 142-foot schooner emerges out of the ocean mist. At its helm is Cleopatra Highbourne, the eccentric 101-year-old sea captain who will take him to a lighthouse on a salty piece of land that will change his life forever. From a lovely sunset sail in Punta Margarita to a wild spring-break foam party in San Pedro, Tully encounters an assortment of treasure hunters, rock stars, sailors, seaplane pilots, pirates, and even a ghost or two.
Download or read book The Boys of Summer written by Roger Kahn and published by Aurum. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the colour barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a book by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is a book about what happened to Jackie, Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, and the others when their glory days were behind them. In short, it is a book fathers and sons and about the making of modern America. 'At a point in life when one is through with boyhood, but has not yet discovered how to be a man, it was my fortune to travel with the most marvelously appealing of teams.' Sentimental because it holds such promise, and bittersweet because that promise is past, the first sentence of this masterpiece of sporting literature, first published in the early '70s, sets its tone. The team is the mid-20th-century Brooklyn Dodgers, the team of Robinson and Snyder and Hodges and Reese, a team of great triumph and historical import composed of men whose fragile lives were filled with dignity and pathos. Roger Kahn, who covered that team for the New York Herald Tribune, makes understandable humans of his heroes as he chronicles the dreams and exploits of their young lives, beautifully intertwining them with his own, then recounts how so many of those sweet dreams curdled as the body of these once shining stars grew rusty with age and battered by experience.
Download or read book The Mental Game Of Baseball written by H. A. Dorfman and published by Taylor Trade Publications. This book was released on 2002 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, authors H.A. Dorfman and Karl Kuehl present their practical and proven strategy for developing the mental skills needed to achieve peack performance at every level of the game.
Download or read book The Major League Baseball Ultimate Book of Records written by Major League Baseball and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the first pitch was thrown, MLB has tracked the performance of every team and player, documented every hit and measured every home run. And while some plays are part of the everyday game, there are moments in baseball when a player's performance reaches a new level of greatness and new records are made. The Major League Baseball Ultimate Book of Records catalogs the game's most remarkable achievements, as well as some of the less traditional and quirky stats that all play a part in the game. MLB's team of in-house writers, researchers and historians have scoured the history of the game and written the most accurate, complete and definitive record of baseball stats and achievements. Major League Baseball Ultimate Book of Records documents the absolute best of the best and packs each achievement into this lavishly illustrated book where fans will be treated to never-before-seen photographs of their favourite players. Double-page spreads will show Henderson racing to second base to claim the stolen base record, while another full color spread celebrates Bond's crushing hit that set a new threshold for most home-runs. All the records are here, each with an account of events and spectacular photographs that make this truly the most spectacular baseball book ever published.
Download or read book A Team for the Ages written by Robert W. Cohen and published by Globe Pequot. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Certain to create new controversies, and stir up some old ones, here is a fascinating historical and comparative look at the national pastime and its greatest players over the past one hundred years.
Download or read book Sports Illustrated Baseball s Greatest written by The Editors of Sports Illustrated and published by Sports Illustrated. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who's the greatest slugger of all time, Babe Ruth or Ted Williams? Where do Derek Jeter and Cal Ripken Jr. rank on the list of the best shortstops? At third base, would you rather have Mike Schmidt or Brooks Robinson? Is Fenway or Wrigley the better ballpark? This book will end many arguments-and start some new ones. Sports Illustrated's has polled its Major League Baseball experts to determine the ultimate Top 10 in more than 20 categories. The rankings appear alongside stunning photography and classic stories from SI's archives. This is the best of the best in the major leagues, or, more simply, Baseball's Greatest.
Download or read book The Sporting News Selects Baseball s 100 Greatest Players written by Ron Smith and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Profiles of 100 of the greatest baseball players of all time.
